Ex-city Employee's Suit Dismissed

FORT LAUDERDALE — A federal judge has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit against the city filed by a black employee whose action prompted other workers to file similar complaints.

City officials said they fired Deborah Lamar, the city's affirmative action specialist, in October 1996 for incompetence, mismanagement, and using a city computer and city time to conduct personal business.

But Lamar said she was fired because she accused the city of ignoring racial tension among employees, and criticized minority hiring and promotion practices.

The judge found she was not fired because of race but because of insubordination.

Lamar was responsible for writing a 1996 affirmative action report for the city. The report contained her own commentary, including: "We are still a city plagued with racism, glass ceilings for women and brick walls for people of color." Her supervisors told her to make changes to the report. She refused to make them. U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas dismissed Lamar's complaint, writing, "While Lamar may have been entitled as a citizen to express her opinions regarding what she honestly perceived as systemic discrimination, ... she was not entitled to express such opinions, over her supervisor's objections, in the city's own formal document. ... The city's termination ... was not based upon her protected speech or her race or gender, but rather ... her own insubordination."

Lamar could not be reached for comment.

Her attorney, Reginald Clyne, of Coral Gables, said Lamar will appeal.

"We don't agree with the ruling," he said. "This is a far greater issue than just race. There's a government here that's flaunting the Constitution. If you don't stop them now, it gets worse."

Lamar was critical of the city's response to the Clifton McCree shooting incident. McCree, who was black, left a note blaming racism for his problems after he killed five co-workers and himself in February 1996.

Lamar's suit, naming former City Manager George Hanbury and three top administrators, contended Fort Lauderdale could have prevented the massacre by the former beach worker by addressing racial discrimination in its work force.

Lamar, who had worked for the city since 1988, also accused officials of treating her differently from white males with similar performance problems. She claims those employees were not disciplined.

Her case, before it had even appeared before the judge, had a significant impact at City Hall. Clyne says he now has 29 employees as clients claiming discrimination. And Lamar has helped organize at least one recent rally outside of commission meetings. About 100 protestors, many of them black city employees, carried signs saying "End racism now!" and "Let's end apartheid in South Florida!"

But although the city's legal woes temporarily end here, officials say they will look into the problems.

"We still need to review any actions done in the past that were improper so we can learn from them," Mayor Jim Naugle said.

City Manager Floyd Johnson said: "In terms of the court's finding, it was what we could only hope for. But it does not absolve us of the need to look internally at the cause and circumstances that would cause these types of ... matters to come up in the first place.''